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Was curious to see anyone would be interested in doing a group story. Curious what could happen if say I start a story with a few lines and then it's passed around for others to change/add etc a few lines and pass on to the next until it ends. Was thinking a Dick Tracy type thing on Mars.

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Okay people. This just sounded like fun and it could prove very enlightening. And besides, I'm curious to see where this goes.

I started the story with 660 words and laid out some information so there can be a number of places to go. It's a Dick Tracy type story set on Mars. I know it's in the science fiction genre, but do't let that scare you. just keep the limitations of the setting in mind (it is on Mars in domes and underground to start) add whatever you have in mind (a sentence, paragraph or two or more if you wish) and let the imagination run.

I was able to get rid of the rude landlord who’s trying to evict me if I don’t pay my rent by promising I’d have the money by the end of the week. But I only have thirty credits to my name, enough to by a sandwich. Not the three hundred and fifty I need to pay the rent.

This place isn’t that big, it’s a one-room cutout in the side of a tunnel wall under the main dome. It did come with a desk that doubles as my dining table next to the couch that also doubles as my bed in a living area that triples as a kitchen and restroom. Air and water are pumped everywhere for free and power is available for a fee of course. And all I’ve got other than the cloths on my back and large over coat is some high tech equipment for work.

I should go back to Earth, but you need money to pay for the trip and that would take thirty thousand credits. And there’s the rub, I haven’t been able to get any work since moving to Mars one hundred and eighty sols ago. You can’t go outside without a pressure suit and if you did, you can’t get to another doom unless you can hire a transport. No one wants to hire a private investigator because where can you go?

I don't have any training in anything but security, leaving me with no job prospects because security is run by the Martian government. Wish I would’ve researched that little piece of information before I got here. And they aren’t very happy with me because of the misunderstanding we had about ninety sols ago.

I might be able to go into the underground communities or the tunnels with the rest of the homeless and stranded. That means selling my equipment though, if only I could get enough from all of it for the trip to Earth it'd be worth it. But it'll buy some food. And because most of it comes from Earth on supply shuttles, it isn’t cheap.

As I sit behind the desk trying to figure out what I’m going to do while toying with the ID badge Mars security gave me when I first arrived, there’s a knock on the door. Hoping it’s not the landlord coming back because he changed his mind, I open the door cautiously. On the other side is a caucasian woman, medium length brunet hair, about five foot six, one hundred thirty pounds and outright gorgeous.

“Can I help you?” I ask.

“Are you Richard P Marlow?” She asks me as she try's to look around me into the room.

“Who’s asking?”

“You can call me Penny, Penny Blossom.”

“What do you want with this Mouser Ms. Blossom?”

“I need your help Mr. Mouser. I need you to find someone for me.”

“I’m not your man.”

“Mr. Marlow, it’s very important to me. I have to find him so he can help the master.”

“Why don’t you go to Mars security, they run the security on this planet. They can find your man.”

“They won’t help me Mr. Marlow, they think I’m nuts.”

“Well what makes you think that I don’t think you nuts or I’m Mr. Marlow?”

“Because I’m not nuts and I can see your ID badge on the desk.”

Of all the bad luck, I left my badge out in the open and she saw it.

“I can pay you quite well. I’ll give you a deposit, say twenty five thousand credits up front and another twenty five when you find him.”

Fifty thousand credits, that’s a lot of cheese to find a guy on a planet where there’s no place to hide. But if I can find this guy easy enough I‘ll have enough to get off this God forsaken rock and back to Earth to start over. Maybe I should see if I know this guy.

“If I were interested, what’s this guy’s name?”

“John Stone, his name is John Stone. But he's known as John the Baptist.”

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Was curious to see anyone would be interested in doing a group story. Curious what could happen if say I start a story with a few lines and then it's passed around for others to change/add etc a few lines and pass on to the next until it ends. Was thinking a Dick Tracy type thing on Mars.

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. ""Forty days and forty nights. Real chicken in my soba! Breakfast of Champions! Hot chai,milk-(ish)! And on someone else's thumb! (I negotiated an expense rider to the Veronica's contract. Better than butter!

She did play hardball, though,on the timetable." Forty days and forty nights." Kind of Dirt-ball,if you ask me. Forty hits of Circa-Vent, again on the Veronica's thumb,I'll sleep when I'm dead for a few extra days to find this jamoke.

Did I get in line for second round? I can add more later from a real keyboard

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The bots popped into my Head-Space account before I finished the dregs of my grassy beverage. One-hundred forty-seven "John Stones" or variations on Mars. A French Foreign Legionnaire using the name "Jean-Pierre Baptiste" looked promising; joining the Legion was a well-known path to building a new identity. Haberdashery bill::Camel-hair sport coat, Gucci belt, tan slacks. Maybe I could charge a new Panama to replace my Lemmonyella snap-brim.

Imported Dirt-ball clothes. Ten years military service for a new name. Then a cold trail. Forty days of HeadSpace Plus, the no-ad version. I was going to enjoy this.

#########################

The Wilderness Grill was my favorite realspace. Belters drop in from the Elevator to make deals. Ice-miners come up from the Pits to blow off steam. Tunnel Rat pan-handlers work the crowd. It smells like stale beer, rancid sweat,burnt tofu,and desperation.

"Marlowe, you old horse-lover! Got any specie?"

I had a fanny pack of plastic chips in several different denominations, the closest thing to cold,hard cash you could find on Mars

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Clarissa, the dance-hall girl with the nicotine habit (unless somebody can write their way out of that stereotype) is a tribute to an old Nickolodeon show. Because she's Dick Marlowe's confidential informant she "...Explains it all."